


Adrift

by ragnarok89



Category: CLAMP - Works, Tokyo Babylon, Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, X -エックス- | X/1999
Genre: Angst, Canon - Manga, Canon Compliant, Canon Related, Conflict, Drabble, Hunted Vampires, Hunters & Hunting, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Introspection, M/M, No Dialogue, Obsession, One Shot, Short One Shot, Tokyo Babylon/X:1999, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-26
Updated: 2010-06-26
Packaged: 2020-10-06 21:53:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20514083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ragnarok89/pseuds/ragnarok89
Summary: Drabble. What is the difference between life and death?





	Adrift

Maybe death wasn't too far away.

Sometimes, for Seishiro, it did not seem like something to fear, or something to be avoided at all cost. He had dealt with a great share of death for most of his life, and had given it to those he deemed necessary. Death was merely a part of the job for him – nothing out of the ordinary about the eventual decay of life from the eyes of the body in front of him, or anything to fear about the blood that pooled around his feet, the former lifeblood of those who had been breathing moments before.

For Subaru, it was something very horrid, something very unfathomable – it was a virus that took everything away from you – first your body, then your sanity, your well being, your persistence in life, your reason for living. It had already taken so much, his parents being dead when he was little, and now it took his older sister…Hokuto…the one person he had come to depend on for his safety, his state of mind not being shattered. It was all gone now. All gone, and no way for it to return.

Death: one sweep of a hand, a blade, a blunt object, a deity's will and everything would end just like that. There would be no one left to share your pain, and yet, you would know that, even in life, there was no one to share your pain with.

No one except for the hunter, Seishiro. However, Seishiro was never there for Subaru because his own bloodline had condemned him to a fate that was, indeed, as bad as the vampire's. When he fled alongside his twin brother Kamui, Subaru didn't know whether to be overjoyed that he was away from the hunter, or that he should weep for the loss of a companion, the loss of one who truly understood him. The true end was inevitable, for when he sought the lifeblood he would need to survive, he would reap the souls of the living as you were condemned to do not only did all life die, but all life would fall too.

The hunter and the vampire knew what it meant to stand in the lines that marked the boundaries of existence and demise, to have life and to bring death to a human being, to someone who was like them. They knew what it was like to speak as though either one had understood what they had been through to see as if they both knew what it was like to have your life so horrid or tragic that death was the only thing they wanted.

Subaru was so naïve, so childish… so human.

Seishiro was cursed to see through the bloodline until he had achieved what he wanted all along, until release would come to him at long last.

What is the difference between life and death?

The matter of what's adrift – what is in between it all.


End file.
